Good Times
by MarcusKrueger46
Summary: It has been almost two years since Raccoon City was destroyed. The ex-S.T.A.R.S., along with fellow survivors and close friends, gather in a friendly local bar to celebrate a landmark in the life of one of their own: Claire Redfield's 21st birthday.


**Good Times**

Slamming the glass down triumphantly, Claire Redfield let out a hearty, sarcastic "hah!" To which Leon shamefully replied with a drunkard's grin and a shake of the head.

"You're a lightweight, Kennedy!" she laughed. Well, it was more of a cackle, really. A petty, playful cackle at her friend who had previously claimed he could do five shots of tequila before she.

"Yeah yeah," he said. His cheeks were bright red, but not from the alcohol. Leon had been somewhat of a fratboy during his time at the academy. Once, on a visit to his hometown, he had even bested his own father in a drinking contest involving a wide variety of liquors consisting of beer, tequila, rum, whiskey, and vodka of all brands and qualities. Indeed, he held his liquor well, and it wasn't until this fateful night that he had ever met his match. And this girl had just turned twenty one, for God's sake!

"So you swear," he said, slurring his speech heavily, "you've never drunk…drank…drinked…"

He gave up attempting to express himself in favor of laughing boyishly with his good friend, who herself had turned cherry red and was gasping for air.

Between desperate, joyful gasps, she managed to choke out, "drank."

"Right, right right," Leon said with a dying chuckle. "So you've never…drunk," he said, breaking into ecstatic, inebriated laughter once more. "Ddddd….drunk, before?" he stuttered.

"What the hell was that?" Claire giggled. "You carried on that one syllable for like…thirty seconds."

Her face slumped from her open palm sideways onto her left bicep. Her face was frozen in laughter as she continued to stare at her companion.

"So you've never, ever," he said, creating a wide arc with both his arms, "…drunk before in your life?"

"Yes," she said matter-o-factly.

"Really?" Leon said.

Her smile, which had died down slightly in the past few seconds, returned at twice its magnitude as before as she shook her head rapidly.

"Nope," she said, returning to laughter.

Leon followed in close pursuit. "But this is your twenty-first birthday, Claire!" he yelled, well aware of how loud he had been.

She put on a fake frown over a poorly concealed grin as she looked away from her good friend towards the pool table, where the majority of their friends stood chatting, drinking, and smoking.

"Hey Chris!" she yelled over the voices of everyone else in the bar.

Her brother had his arm around his girlfriend, a young brunette he had worked with at a police precinct that now ceased to exist, in a town that had literally been wiped off the map less than two years prior. He was talking to her and another friend of his nearby, a broad-shouldered South American man who he had come to know through his girlfriend.

He turned his head toward his sister.

"What?" he yelled, matching her volume.

"How many times did I get you to buy beer and shit for me in high school?"

Chris quickly flashed his "oh shit" face and nervously glanced over at the bartender who, if he had heard anything, was feigning ignorance. He looked back at Claire who was still grinning broadly, blatantly unaware, or perhaps apathetic, of the significance of what she had just shouted across a crowded room. "More than a lot," he yelled, hoping to quiet his inebriated sibling.

She turned back to Leon. "So you see," she said, "this isn't exactly my first time."

"I had a funny feeling," Leon said.

"My friends and I threw parties and stuff like every other weekend."

"And Chris was okay with that?"

"He didn't know until it was too late," she said as she cocked her head in a playful manner.

That sent both of them back into a frenzied laughter.

"Aww man," Leon said, slapping his hand over his face, "I am sooo wasted right now."

"Again," Claire laughed, extending her arm to his shoulder, "lightweight".

On that word she nudged him ever so slightly, causing him to lose balance and slide off the barstool with a slow, dull thud, followed by a drowsy grunt.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

"Your sister seems to be enjoying her party," Jill said as she watched the two from afar.

Chris and Carlos chuckled at the scene. Claire had shoved Leon off his chair, and now he was attempting to get to his feet while Claire suffocated from laughter.

"You know, I always wondered why those two never hooked up," Carlos breathed absent-mindedly.

It took him more than a few seconds to realize that Chris was glaring at him. Jill was helping.

He shrugged. "What? Look at them. I mean, they spend so much time together, right? Jeez Chris. The only guy I've ever known closer to her than him is you."

"But the fact of the matter is you just referred to his sister in terms of sex," Jill said, motioning with her index finger between the inebriated twenty-one-year-old at the bar and the muscular twenty-seven-year-old at her side.

"What's wrong with that?" Carlos shrugged. "She's an adult now, right? She's got her own life. Plus, I mean, she's twenty-one. She's probably _already_-"

"Okay," Jill quickly interjected, placing a flat palm in front of his face. "Now you're about to go over the line."

"It's okay, Jill," Chris said, his anger bleeding through his friendly façade as he calmly pushed her hand away from Carlos's face. "First offenses I can let slide. Now Carlos," he began, "you have to understand something about Claire and I. Less than ten years ago, our parents were killed in a car accident."

"Daaamn," Carlos breathed. "I'm sorry, man."

"Thanks," Chris said. "Well anyway, both our parents were killed and we had no immediate family in Chicago, so I had to raise her myself." He casually followed this with a swig of beer. Jill, however, knew better. Despite how well he was masking his emotions, Chris absolutely hated thinking, let alone talking about his parents' demise. "So he's really protective of her," she cut in.

"Ahh. I get it," Carlos said. "Yeah, my bad, Chris," he said.

Chris just smiled and shook his head. "Like I said, first offense. Don't worry about it. Next time, though," he said as he, smiling slightly and momentarily releasing Jill, made a threatening gesture with his hands.

"Alright, alright, hombre!" Carlos said laughing. "I get the picture!"

"He's not joking, though," Jill said as she snuggled back into Chris's grip. "He put a guy in the hospital once. You're just lucky you two are friends; anybody else wouldn't have even gotten a warning." Chris smiled as he brought his bottle up to chest level and winked at Carlos.

"Oh," said Carlos. After a second he took a big sip from his bottle.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Rebecca threw her arms up in the air and let out an ecstatic shriek. Just as she did, Barry exited the restroom and, upon hearing the young girl's piercing victory yell, stopped in his tracks. Rebecca didn't notice. She broke into a series of bubbly giggles as she pointed at the dartboard, upon which a single bright red dart protruded from its dead center. The boy beside her grinned and shook his head.

"Oh my god! First try! Beat _that_ Shaun!" It was then that she noticed Barry off to the side, eyes wide, slapping the side of his head as if to free water trapped in his ears. "You okay Barry?" she said.

He looked at her and shuddered. "You're loud," he said. He lumbered over to the table and grabbed his bottle. Just as he attempted to lift it to his mouth, Rebecca seized his arm and tugged, spilling a few drops of precious alcohol.

"Barry! Come check out this shot!" she said excitedly, leading him over to the dartboard. "Look at that," she said, her pride spilling out of her like the beer from Barry's bottle. "First try!"

The rugged, grizzled veteran leaned forward a few inches and squinted. "Oh!" he said suddenly. "Hell of a shot," he said as he turned to her.

"I know, right?" she replied happily.

"Pure luck," said Rebecca's young companion, a wry grin persisting on his face.

"Jealous much?" Rebecca said.

"Okay, fine," he said, exhaling as he spoke. "You win. So that means…"

"That means you have to come with me to the Green Day concert next month!" she said excitedly. "_And_ you have to pay for the tickets."

"Fuck me dead," Shaun said.

Nearby, Leon verbalized the sound of a whip and flicked his wrist in their direction while Claire laughed hysterically.

"Oh my god," Claire choked out. "That sucks so much!"

"Yeah, it does," Shaun agreed. His sullen face changed to one of surrendering happiness as Rebecca barreled into him with a loving embrace, and kissed him on the neck. "Alright, alright," he said, returning her affection.

"Aww," said Claire, grinning at the couple with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. Off in the distance, Shaun caught a glimpse of Carlos pantomiming the use of a camera on the two while Chris and Jill laughed. Various other partygoers reacted in much the same way. Barry just sat and smiled a grandfatherly smile.

After about twenty seconds, they still hadn't broken the kiss. It was then that the whooping and catcalls set in, with Claire and Leon making rather rude gestures at them. When they finally separated, Shaun, an indignant, slightly embarrassed smile painted on his bright red face, half laughed as he yelled at the crowd to "shut the fuck up".

…………………………………………………………………………………….

The evening wound down, and the partygoers maintained their energy. Chris won fifty dollars off Leon in a game of pool, while Claire attempted to beat Rebecca's shot at darts with blurred vision and impaired motor skills. Three of Claire's college friends chatted with Rebecca in the corner while Shaun and Carlos talked amongst themselves. A mutual friend of Claire and Rebecca tried her hand at Karaoke, and performed surprisingly well.

Jill was beginning to feel woozy, so she sat down and watched the party next to Barry as he played a rousing game of Virtual Bass Fishing.

"Come on now," he breathed, as if the computer-generated fish could hear his voice. "Take it, you beautiful sonofabitch. Go on."

"Don't talk so loud, Barry," Jill whispered. "You'll scare them away."

"Almost…almossst…"

The fish on the screen snapped at the bait and attempted to steel away with it. Barry reacted quickly, pulling back on the controller and reeling furiously.

"Gotcha!" he yelled at last, beaming at his virtual prize. "Look at that," he said, gesturing to Jill. "New high score!"

Jill got up and looked at the screen. "Wow," she said, pursing her bottom lip and nodding with approval. "When can we eat it?"

She laughed as Barry pushed her shoulder.

"Okay," he said. "Now I just gotta enter my initials."

BSB: Barry Samwise Burton. Jill gave him a congratulatory pat on the back and stumbled forward as she did so, the controller jabbing her sternum.

"Ugh," she grunted. Barry seized her shoulders and laughed heartily. He set her back down at her seat and took away her bottle.

"You've had enough of this," he said. Jill nodded.

"I agree".

She placed her head in her palm and moaned. "I feel sick."

"Well, five bottles of Heineken will do that to you," Barry said. "Two bottles and six shots of tequila will do that." He pointed over to a stumbling Claire, who had prematurely let go of her dart and accidentally gotten it stuck in the ceiling seconds before. "Good lord, I can't believe how well that kid holds her liquor."

"Yeah, well I've never really been a partier," Jill murmured. She glanced around. "What time is it?"

Barry looked at the clock behind her. "Twelve fifteen," he said. Jill groaned.

"I should probably get going. Got work in the morning." She stopped. Her dazed, groggy face lit up slightly. "Hey, that rhymed. Sorta."

She slid off her chair and hugged Barry around the neck. "'night, Barry."

Sighing, holding her forehead, she walked over to Chris, who was in the midst of a rematch with Leon.

"Hey," she said, roughly patting his rear, causing him to turn. A lit cigarette hung from his mouth. "I'm gonna pass out any minute." She held up some keys and jingled them in front of his face. "My place?"

Chris snatched the keys from her hand and reached into his back pocket, producing a wad of ten-dollar bills.

"You win, Kennedy," he said, tossing it to him. As Chris and Jill went around the room to say their good-byes, Leon flipped through the wad, grinning as he noticed an extra fifty-dollar bill Chris had neglected to separate from the rest.

"Hey Claire," he said, walking over to Chris' younger sibling.

"What," she called back, nearly hitting Carlos with a dart as he left the men's room.

"Jeez!" he said, leaping out of the path of the projectile.

"Sorry Carlos," she laughed.

"Look what your bro was nice enough to give me," he said, holding the bills under her nose. She attempted to snatch them away from him, but he retracted his hand just in time.

"Got my money back with interest," he said with a self-satisfied grin.

"Cool," she said. Her words spilled from her lips rather than being enunciated properly. "Does that mean you're gonna buy the birthday girl some more shots?"

She grinned a pretty, toothy grin at him, but he merely shook his head, swaying as he did.

"I'd say you've had enough for one night."

"Aww, c'mon," she moaned. "I'm not that drunk."

Not more than a second after she said the word "drunk", gravity took hold and she began to fall backwards. Luckily, Carlos noticed this and caught her by the shoulders just as her body made a forty-five degree angle with the ground.

"Crap," he said, clutching the young woman's shoulders. "You'd better sit down awhile, kid."

"Yeah," Leon said, helping Carlos lead her to a nearby table.

"Uh-oh."

The voice of the young Redfields' older sibling sounded behind the trio as Jill and Chris, arms wrapped around each other's waists, approached them.

"You know, on second thought, maybe I should lay off the sauce for a little bit," Claire mumbled. She buried her head in her folded arms and sighed loudly.

Chris broke away from Jill and sat down opposite from Claire.

"Claire-Bear?" he said, tapping the top of her ponytail-clad head.

She lifted her head, cheeks and nose rosy, eyes glassy, struggling to maintain consciousness.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Chris held up two fingers. Then three. Then five. Then one.

"Oh, be nice," Jill said, slapping his arm.

Claire held up one of her own hands and began imitating her brother. "This many".

Leon laughed.

"Listen, kiddo, we're gonna make a break for it," Chris said to his barely conscious sister. "You can get a ride home with Rebecca and Shaun, right?"

"Don't count on it," she mumbled. "Somethin' tells me they're gonna be wanting a little 'alone time' tonight."

"I can take you," Carlos said. "I'm okay to drive, and I don't really have anywhere to be tomorrow."

"That means no more of this then," Chris said, plucking the bottle from his hands.

"Hey!" he said. "It was more than half empty!"

Chris held the bottle up by its neck in front of one of the bar's lights. "I'd say it's half-"

"Don't you dare," Claire said suddenly. "If the next words that come out of your mouth are 'half full', I'm gonna clobber you."

Leon snatched the bottle from his hands.

"Mind giving me a ride too, Carlos?" he said before downing the rest of the bottle's contents.

"May as well, considering you just drank all my beer." He opened his pockets. "And I don't have any money left."

"Poor Carlos," Jill said with a honey-sweet tone and a tomboyish grin.

"Yeah, yeah, poor me," he said, shaking his head.

"Hey, you're the one that just volunteered to be our designated driver," Leon said. "And, as an ex-cop, I just can't in all clear conscience allow you to drive under the influence."

Carlos rolled his eyes. "Well, you two have fun," he said, gesturing to Chris and Jill. "I'll stay here and baby-sit the kids."

"Hey wait," Jill said. "What if Barry gives you two a ride?"

"Forget it," the familiar, husky voice said behind them. "Old people got early bedtimes." He had approached the group with the keys to his Dodge Ram in hand. "Speakin' of which, I think I'm gonna head on out."

The group said their individual good-byes to Barry as he went around the table.

"Bye, guys," he said, his beard contorted with a familiar warm smile. "And happy birthday, kiddo."

Despite her state of mind, Claire managed to beam at him and wave good-bye.

After Barry finished going around the table, collecting hugs and handshakes and friendly good-byes, he left the table and headed for the door, venturing out into the warm June night.

"We're actually gonna go, too," Jill said, standing up as quickly as she could manage. "Chris, come." She picked up her mate by the ear and circled around to Claire's side of the table, where she embraced the nascent twenty one-year-old. "Bye Claire. Happy birthday."

"Bye Jill," Claire replied. "Thanks for coming."

Chris leaned over and hugged his sister. "Happy birthday, Claire-Bear".

"Thanks for setting all this up," she said.

"Hey, no problem. Just you be sure to remember this when March rolls around."

She stuck out her tongue at him, then joined him in laughter.

"Take care, sis."

Jill and Chris said their good-byes and left the trio.

"The Drunkening", Leon said.

"What?" Claire said.

"That would…be a great name for a horror movie, ya know, about drunk teens, and…fuck, I don't know."

For a few seconds, nobody said anything. Leon's sleepy eyes met with Claire's half-open eye, which then went to Carlos's sleepy eyes, which went on to Leon's, and so on.

"Don't you hate that?" Leon said finally.

"What?" Carlos said.

"Uncomfortable silences," Claire smirked.

She picked herself up and continued, her tone of voice suddenly going very regal.

"Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to feel comfortable?"

Leon's boyish features stretched into a wide smile that would have put Willem DaFoe to shame.

"I don't know. That's a good question."

"That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and-"

"Comfortably enjoy the silence."

Leon had already joined Claire at the beginning of the last sentence.

Carlos looked between the two of them.

"Okay, there's something going on here! What the hell just happened?"

Leon and Claire let out sharp yelps of laughter. Claire even snorted, which made her laugh even harder.

"Pulp-"

"Motha-fuckin'-"

"Fiction!"

By the following morning, neither Leon nor Claire would be able to remember who started the sentence, and consequentially, who was responsible for the "motha-fuckin'" addition, or even if they had both thought to say exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Regardless, Carlos's reaction would have been the same:

"Madre dios…"

"Yes!" Leon said. He and Claire each went up for a high-five. They missed.

"Fuck, wait," Claire said, on the verge of another giggling fit.

"Here, no," Leon said. "Look at my elbow while you do it."

"What?"

"Just look at my elbow."

They went up for a second attempt. Both their hands met perfectly.

"Yeee!" Claire cried.

Their hands fell, but didn't separate. Neither did their eye contact.

Carlos suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

"Another one of those uncomfortable silences, huh?"

Neither one answered him.

"Claire!"

Claire and Leon's eyes shot toward Rebecca.

"We're gonna get going. Shaun needs his beauty sleep."

"And I've got an exam tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, that's right!" Rebecca beamed at him. "How's it feel to still be in school at your age?" She stuck out her tongue.

"Not all of us are chemistry geniuses, Becca," he said, pushing her tongue back into her mouth with his middle finger. "Most people consider twenty-three a normal age for a Med student."

"Whatever," she said, leaning over to hug Claire.

"Thanks for coming, Becca."

"We had a great time." They separated. "How's it feel to be a full-fledged legal adult?"

"It's great," Claire said. "And slightly nauseous."

"We'll see you guys later," Shaun said.

"Yeah, see ya," Rebecca said. She leaned over and hugged the slightly older girl.

"Buh-bye," Claire said.

"Bye Claire," Shaun said, mimicking Rebecca.

As they went through the front door, Claire's head popped up and called to them.

"Have fun tonight, you two!"

Leon just caught the edge of Rebecca's high-pitched giggle before the door slid closed behind them.

"So, Claire-bear," Leon said, tussling the girl's hair, "your b-day's technically over."

"Aw, for real?" Claire said.

"It's past midnight," he said.

She pouted.

"That doesn't necessarily mean the party's over," he said.

"You know how I wanna end today?" Claire said.

"You wanna watch Pulp Fiction again?" Leon said.

"I wanna watch Pulp Fiction again."

"Well I don't have Pulp Fiction again."

"Well I do again."

Leon S. Kennedy threw his hands up and let them drop. "It's settled then. Your place."

"You're damn right, my place," she said.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Carlos's Chevy drove straight through a red light at the intersection at the corner of the street. It was the only car on the road.

"Mmm, let's see," Claire said, rifling through her key ring.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

"You kids have fun," Carlos had said.

"You're sure you don't wanna watch it with us?" Claire had said. She couldn't see the faces Leon had been making at Carlos behind her.

"No, I gotta get up early tomorrow. You guys have fun."

…………………………………………………………………………………….

"You know who you look like?" Leon said, his head resting against the brick of the apartment building hallway.

"Who?" Claire said.

"From a certain angle, you kinda look like Uma Thurman."

"No shit," Claire giggled.

"From a certain angle," Leon said.

"I think she's got a weird face," Claire said. "Shit, where _is_ it?"

"From a certain angle she does," Leon said. "But you get the right angle, she looks like a fucking goddess."

"So should I kiss you or punch you in the mouth?" Claire said. Momentarily, she abandoned her key-hunting quest and turned to him with her tiny, thin hands on her shapely hips. "Because you said that, from a certain angle, I look like Uma Thurman. But when I said I think she has a weird face, you said, 'from a certain angle'." She paused for a few seconds to stare him down with two huge, blue glaciers for eyes. "So if I look like Uma Thurman, and Uma Thurman looks like an alien from a certain angle, does that mean I have a weird face, too?"

"Not fair," Leon said.

"So which is it, Kennedy?" she said.

"Whichever one ends with you giving me a kiss instead of hitting me."

"Oh, wait," Claire said, reaching into her back pocket. "I lost my house key earlier this week. I took it off the ring for…some reason…and I found it on the sidewalk down there this afternoon. And I put it-" she opened her palm, exposing the key. "In my back pocket."

"Hooray," Leon said.

Claire replaced her hands on her hips.

"Are we going inside?"

"I wanna know which is which," Claire said.

Leon rolled his eyes. "You know what I meant."

"So I look like Uma Thurman from the good angle or the bad one?"

"What do you think?"

"I wanna hear what you think."

"You enjoy doing this to me way too much, Claire-Bear."

Claire cocked her head.

"Chris is the only one who calls me that."

"From a certain angle, you look like Uma Thurman from the _good_ angle."

"Good," Claire said.

He hadn't expected her to actually do it, but when the heels of her Sketchers planted themselves back on the ground an instant later, Leon realized she had just kissed him. It wasn't even a small, friendly peck on the cheek. It had been on the lips. She had even lingered.

She was smiling at him now, keeping her eyes locked on him as she slid the key into the lock and turned. She opened the door all the way. She nodded her head towards the interior of her home. Leon smiled and went inside.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

"You know who _you_ kinda look like," Claire said.

"_English mothafucka! Do you speak it?"_

"Who," Leon said, his arms squeezing around her bare midsection even more tightly than they had in the past hour.

"Samuel L. Jackson."

She looked back at him, grinning wide.

"_DOES…HE…LOOK…LIKE…A BITCH?"_

Their combined laughter drowned out the rest of the scene.

AUTHOR'S NOTE(S):

M'kay. This story has been kind of a shameful secret of mine for awhile now. I know that there's probably more romance-y stories between Leon and Claire on this site than any other kind of Resident Evil fanfiction (except for romance-y stories between Chris and Wesker, obviously). As much as I consider myself to be a big, strapping manly man, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for these stories. They seem to be, for the most part, the most well-written subset of Resident Evil fanfiction I've seen as of yet, even if they are products of wishful thinking and fangirl/boyism. More importantly, I've found most of them to be quite moving and honest. Even the saucier ones seem more like narratives of truly heartfelt affection than cheap pornography.

So this is my contribution to the subset, I suppose. When I started this story, I didn't plan it to be, but that's just how it turned out. I don't think this will be as widely viewed as S.T.A.R.S., but that's mainly because more people have subscribed to that textual blue whale than to my actual profile. So to those of you who found this story because you subscribed to my page, hooray for you! Virtual hugs and cookies all around. As for the rest of you, you now have five minutes to subscribe before your nearest closet door opens, releasing a flood of carnivorous calico-colored guinea pigs I have specially trained to punish those who read my material without subscribing. Or maybe I'll release a few more stories independent of my main project that you won't be notified about either. Nah nah nah nah boo boo.

Anyway, you may also notice I've continued to make very specific movie references within my writing. Again, these aren't planned, they just sort of happen. Quentin Tarentino himself used to do this when he started out. In the words of Kevin Smith, "great minds think alike, motherfucker!" Movies are, and have always been, and always will be, a huge part of my life. I'm considering going into the film business one day. It'll be a few years before I decide for sure. Speaking of which, at time of writing I'm sitting in my new dorm room with my spiffy new Dell laptop while listening to Journey on iTunes. I was done with class today at 1:30 PM and have almost no homework. When I'm finished here I'm gonna go down to Commons and grab some free food. College is pretty tight.

One last thing: for those of you who haven't checked my profile in the past four months or so…go check it out. It has my latest batch of excuses as to why I haven't been doing much more on this site than occasionally checking my story/profile stats and laughing maniacally whenever my hit count goes up. Speaking of which…

1000 HITS MOTHAFUCKA!!!

…on S.T.A.R.S. at least. Still, given the size of this site that says good things about the story and awesome things about you guys. It happened awhile ago, but either the same people are reading the same chapters over and over again, or word's gettin' around. In either case, I'm excited and extremely grateful to all of you. In a way, this story is a thank-you to my readers and all the support they/you have given me these past coupla years.

PS: Leave reviews. Every time you don't leave a review, a puppy cries.


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